This project centers around interviews with professional and/or personal acquaintances of Elinor and Vincent Ostrom. Every interview explores a unique relationship with the Ostroms and the continuing impact of the Ostrom Workshop at Indiana University. Elinor (Lin) and Vincent Ostrom founded the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis in 1973.The Ostrom Workshop has been the catalyst for worldwide collaboration in the field of public policy and environmental issues. "Coming Together" is an interdisciplinary exploration of the legacy and impact of Elinor (Lin) and Vincent Ostrom. Major topics include; academia, "the commons", cross-disciplinary collaboration, Elinor Ostrom's Nobel Prize, the Ostrom Workshop, political science, political theory, and the Workshop on the Ostrom Workshop (WOW) conference. The project was created to assist in the dissertation research of Sara Catherine Clark, who was a doctoral candidate within the School of Education, pursing a Ph.D. in History, Philosophy, and Policy in Education, at Indiana University Bloomington. Sara Catherine Clark's dissertation was completed in 2019 and is cited as follows: Clark, S. C. (2019). Elinor ostrom: A biography of interdisciplinary life.
Eduardo Brondizio is a professor of Anthropology at Indiana University. He met Elinor Ostrom while developing a proposal for a Center of excellence on the study of population, institutions, and environmental change (CIPEC). He discusses the way the Ostroms built teams by creating a space where common language was upheld above discipline specific language and the overarching idea of research around problems, not disciplines. He goes on to describe how he began working at the Ostrom Workshop and what he does there now. Personal and last memories of Elinor Ostrom are also shared.
Tom Evans is a professor at the University of Arizona in the School of Geography and Development. Evans was hired by Elinor Ostrom and Emilio Moran in 1998 as a post-doctoral scholar at the Center for the Study of Institutions, Population, and Environmental Change (CIPEC). During his post-doc he was a co-principle investigator with Elinor Ostrom, working on a biocomplexity Nation Science Foundation grant. Later, Evans became co-director of CIPEC and co-director of the Ostrom Workshop which he discusses at length. He also discusses some of the core research that was going on at the Ostrom Workshop such as the social-ecological system (SES) framework. Evans closes the interview by discussing the Workshop on the Ostrom Workshop Conference and the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.